Maybe it’s the whole Tony Blair remaking (and noticeably worsening) of the democratic world’s longest-standing constitutional arrangements, the unwritten British set-up with parliamentary sovereignty at its heart. Or maybe it’s entering into some UN convention or treaty that clearly has the potential to hamstring future democratic decision-making at home. Or maybe it’s Canada’s public funding of ‘Charter of Rights challenges’, namely taxpayer-funded rights-related attacks by aggrieved groups against laws passed by the elected legislature (and which every sentient being knows will be used against conservatives vastly more than against progressive Lefties). Or maybe it’s the creation of taxpayer-funded writers’ festivals, portraiture prizes and the like where conservatives are so rare they call in Attenborough to do a documentary when one is spotted. Or maybe it’s even changes at the public universities to emphasise a litany of identity politics-related essentials – flying four, five or six flags each day; days, weeks or months dedicated to pick-your-favourite supposed victim group; endless land acknowledgements; posters put up to virtue-signal the institution’s tolerance of all DEI groups, while free speech is made a third-order concern.
You see it again and again. The Left side of politics aggressively seeds new institutions. Or it remakes ones already there. It enacts democracy-enervating legislation. Or it enfeebles the elected branches by signing up to supranational treaties and conventions that give unelected and unaccountable elites far too much power. And then, when the Right side gets back into office you get crickets. Nada. Nothing. They simply allow these institutions, laws, treaties, arts festivals, remade universities, every Lefty innovation to carry on. No bureaucracy is disestablished. No treaty withdrawn from. No statute repealed. No writers’ festival defunded. No public broadcaster’s budget slashed, or better yet the whole thing made a subscription service. No fight. No cojones. Just a quiet sort of implicit surrender.
Take the Australian Human Rights Commission (and yes, I know, the Fraser Government stupidly brought in an early, much weaker version of this – just as it was ScoMo who prevaricatingly signed us up to Net Zero). But we have now had decades to see this body in action. Indeed, for well over a decade I have been publicly calling for it to be dismantled. It does nothing for free speech in this country. It supports the s.18C hate speech laws. During what retired UK Supreme Court judge Jonathan Sumption rightly called the biggest inroads on our civil liberties in 200 years – the whole panoply of lockdown thuggery and made-up out of thin air irrational regulations – this body with its grotesquely overpaid commissioners never once objected to any rights-infringement. Not a single one of the thousands from which to choose. And in the Tickle vs Giggle case they supported and funded the trans activist. Not women. Yet nine years of Coalition governments and they did nothing. Heck, they couldn’t even find it in themselves to support Peter Ridd – who lost his job for telling the truth.
But why do nothing about the Human Rights Commission? Just close it down. It not only deserves to be made extinct, it would also be politically popular to do so (outside the corridors of Ultimo, that is). Or what about Queensland’s statutory Bill of rights, opposed by the LNP when Labor brought it in without taking it to an election? But once Crisafulli and Co get into power they just go quiet and leave it there. Exactly as we saw in Victoria with Ted Baillieu’s pusillanimous surrender on the Bill of rights issue. (Does anyone imagine a future Jess Wilson government – we’re imagining here – repealing it? Don’t make me laugh.) Likewise, we saw the same unwillingness to repeal theirs from 14 years of Tory governments in Britain after the Blair constitutional malfeasance. No repeal of the statutory Bill of rights that greatly empowered the unelected judges. No repeal of the statute that lets judges there pick their own successors. No withdrawal from the European Convention. Just abject surrender on all fronts save Brexit (so credit where it’s due). But even with Brexit, once it was half-accomplished the Tories refused to use their new freedoms to break free from the regulatory leviathan that is the European Union – the rich world’s slowest-growing economic area for the last couple of decades and the place Mark Carney wants Canada to somehow join. The same goes, yet again, for the Right side of politics in New Zealand. The Left brings in and the Right cowardly accepts these changes once it gets back into government.
Or look at the Paris Accords. Trump starts his second term and pulls out of Paris, out of the WHO, out of the UN Human Rights Council. Sure, we finally have a Coalition that promises to jettison Net Zero and is proposing detailed policies that will seriously hurt the climate doomsters. But it stops short of pledging to leave Paris. Why? If Paris is just symbolism, and everything that those of us who want much lower electricity prices can be achieved without leaving Paris, well, it’s still hard to fathom why we should stay. Why not cut the umbilical cord to this supranational monstrosity? Because the politics of staying are the politics of One Nation reminding voters that the Libs just look to be a lighter shade of Labor. Right? Meanwhile, if Paris is something more than just symbolism, tell me why we’re not leaving. It is pusillanimity wrapped in stupidity, enveloping a party room with far too many so-called ‘moderates’ who have to be bought off.
Voters like me are just craving bravery and a willingness to repeal, withdraw, dismantle and undo all the Labor seeding of our institutions. Shut the taxpayer tap for the writers’ festivals that can’t find more than one token conservative per year. Ditto for the woeful arts festivals. Show some cojones. Start with shutting down the Australian Human Rights Commission. It is virtually always on the opposite side to me of every political issue going that can plausibly be characterised as a rights-related one. Why are my taxes (in this very high-taxing jurisdiction of Australia) going to pay for this body? It makes the country worse, not better. Heck, why not let Giggle’s Sally Grover decide if it warrants continued existence?
Look, it can be done. Trump has closed down, withdrawn from and defunded all sorts of the Left’s pet projects. There is every sign that Nigel Farage will be aping this approach. The longstanding, established parties of the Right need to start repealing and undoing – or get out of the way so that the Paulines of the world can have a go.
Dr James Allan is the Garrick Professor of Law at Queensland University.This article was sourced HERE
You see it again and again. The Left side of politics aggressively seeds new institutions. Or it remakes ones already there. It enacts democracy-enervating legislation. Or it enfeebles the elected branches by signing up to supranational treaties and conventions that give unelected and unaccountable elites far too much power. And then, when the Right side gets back into office you get crickets. Nada. Nothing. They simply allow these institutions, laws, treaties, arts festivals, remade universities, every Lefty innovation to carry on. No bureaucracy is disestablished. No treaty withdrawn from. No statute repealed. No writers’ festival defunded. No public broadcaster’s budget slashed, or better yet the whole thing made a subscription service. No fight. No cojones. Just a quiet sort of implicit surrender.
Take the Australian Human Rights Commission (and yes, I know, the Fraser Government stupidly brought in an early, much weaker version of this – just as it was ScoMo who prevaricatingly signed us up to Net Zero). But we have now had decades to see this body in action. Indeed, for well over a decade I have been publicly calling for it to be dismantled. It does nothing for free speech in this country. It supports the s.18C hate speech laws. During what retired UK Supreme Court judge Jonathan Sumption rightly called the biggest inroads on our civil liberties in 200 years – the whole panoply of lockdown thuggery and made-up out of thin air irrational regulations – this body with its grotesquely overpaid commissioners never once objected to any rights-infringement. Not a single one of the thousands from which to choose. And in the Tickle vs Giggle case they supported and funded the trans activist. Not women. Yet nine years of Coalition governments and they did nothing. Heck, they couldn’t even find it in themselves to support Peter Ridd – who lost his job for telling the truth.
But why do nothing about the Human Rights Commission? Just close it down. It not only deserves to be made extinct, it would also be politically popular to do so (outside the corridors of Ultimo, that is). Or what about Queensland’s statutory Bill of rights, opposed by the LNP when Labor brought it in without taking it to an election? But once Crisafulli and Co get into power they just go quiet and leave it there. Exactly as we saw in Victoria with Ted Baillieu’s pusillanimous surrender on the Bill of rights issue. (Does anyone imagine a future Jess Wilson government – we’re imagining here – repealing it? Don’t make me laugh.) Likewise, we saw the same unwillingness to repeal theirs from 14 years of Tory governments in Britain after the Blair constitutional malfeasance. No repeal of the statutory Bill of rights that greatly empowered the unelected judges. No repeal of the statute that lets judges there pick their own successors. No withdrawal from the European Convention. Just abject surrender on all fronts save Brexit (so credit where it’s due). But even with Brexit, once it was half-accomplished the Tories refused to use their new freedoms to break free from the regulatory leviathan that is the European Union – the rich world’s slowest-growing economic area for the last couple of decades and the place Mark Carney wants Canada to somehow join. The same goes, yet again, for the Right side of politics in New Zealand. The Left brings in and the Right cowardly accepts these changes once it gets back into government.
Or look at the Paris Accords. Trump starts his second term and pulls out of Paris, out of the WHO, out of the UN Human Rights Council. Sure, we finally have a Coalition that promises to jettison Net Zero and is proposing detailed policies that will seriously hurt the climate doomsters. But it stops short of pledging to leave Paris. Why? If Paris is just symbolism, and everything that those of us who want much lower electricity prices can be achieved without leaving Paris, well, it’s still hard to fathom why we should stay. Why not cut the umbilical cord to this supranational monstrosity? Because the politics of staying are the politics of One Nation reminding voters that the Libs just look to be a lighter shade of Labor. Right? Meanwhile, if Paris is something more than just symbolism, tell me why we’re not leaving. It is pusillanimity wrapped in stupidity, enveloping a party room with far too many so-called ‘moderates’ who have to be bought off.
Voters like me are just craving bravery and a willingness to repeal, withdraw, dismantle and undo all the Labor seeding of our institutions. Shut the taxpayer tap for the writers’ festivals that can’t find more than one token conservative per year. Ditto for the woeful arts festivals. Show some cojones. Start with shutting down the Australian Human Rights Commission. It is virtually always on the opposite side to me of every political issue going that can plausibly be characterised as a rights-related one. Why are my taxes (in this very high-taxing jurisdiction of Australia) going to pay for this body? It makes the country worse, not better. Heck, why not let Giggle’s Sally Grover decide if it warrants continued existence?
Look, it can be done. Trump has closed down, withdrawn from and defunded all sorts of the Left’s pet projects. There is every sign that Nigel Farage will be aping this approach. The longstanding, established parties of the Right need to start repealing and undoing – or get out of the way so that the Paulines of the world can have a go.
Dr James Allan is the Garrick Professor of Law at Queensland University.This article was sourced HERE
8 comments:
James, you must realize that the left believes in taking taxpayer money, using it to fund new commissions, agencies and ministries, those new so-called public servants will be on sweet deals and pensions--and of course be beholden to their creators/employers---and then they pump money back into the economy via consumption. That virtuous process continues until the left runs out of other people's money to spend. The left views empty businesses simply as space to be occupied by more bureaucrats who do not generate any money.
The difference between New Zealanders and Americans is that Americans will actually act, not just talk. Thus they voted for President Trump to change things. He is doing so. Australians and Brits will vote for Pauline Hanson and Nigel Farage to "change things". New Zealanders simply whinge and moan, write articles and wring their hands.
Stand up, be strong make your voice count. Take a punt. There are probably 70%-80% of silent, fellow citizens who want to retain our democracy.
Davina Smolders is an ideal role model for the timid at heart.
You are not alone - I've noticed it, so there are at least two of us.
Failing to reverse the previous often poor legislation of the Left is a feature of centre right governments. Its due to a lack of "intestinal fortitude". In NZ the saying goes that there is no piece of legislation passed by Labour that can't be improved by National when in office. A friend and I once talked of forming a party called the "Shut up and get on with it" party which only had one item in its' manifesto and that was to reduce the legislation on the statute books by 10% each year it was in office. Any wannabe members out there?
The former Conservative parties have become more like the so-called ''progressive left'' to keep ''central'' voters....a uniparty with Green addons. As in EU . State benefits, tax rebates etc span a large section of the population.
The New Zealand National party is the coalition largest contributor for the 2023 - 26 election cycle but has been the handbrake to NZ breaking the shackles of NetZero , Paris Accord et al.
The efforts of the other two coalition partners have been positively practical and decisive.
However the 2023 NZ Coalition election agreement and promises have been rudely hidden ,avoided, and forgotten that they were promised for the giving of your electorate vote to National.
It is not too late under the urgency provisions to enact promised law and save the 2026 election , instead of using extended debate time on frankly pathetic musings in parliament.
Ever and ever ratcheting towards the far left. Smells like it too!
Well, well, well, most of us here can see that the problem we have is the continuing voting into power of people (parties really) that are completely unsuited to the delivery of honest and competent govt. Surely doing the same thing time and time again, and expecting (this time!) a different result has a particularly apt description? What is it now…oh yes…’insanity’, I think. Perhaps you are right James. We desperately need an Aragorn (or Trump?) to tear this rotten system apart, and rebuild from scratch. Impossible? Maybe.
Our PM refuses to believe the part of the famous quote that ends with "you can't please all of the people all of the time". He wants to be friends with all the voters, but has ended up annoying all of them instead. I guess he will finally get the message after the November elections
Post a Comment
Thank you for joining the discussion. Breaking Views welcomes respectful contributions that enrich the debate. Please ensure your comments are not defamatory, derogatory or disruptive. We appreciate your cooperation.